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  <h1 class="w3-xxxlarge">Group Explorer 3.0 Help: GAP</h1>
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                <h3>Contents</h3>
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                    <li><a style="text-decoration: none;"
                          href="#gap-groups-algorithms-programming">GAP (Groups, Algorithms, Programming)</a></li>
                
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                      href="http://nathancarter.github.io/group-explorer">Group Explorer Home</a></h3>

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            <h1 id="gap-groups-algorithms-programming"><em>GAP</em> (Groups, Algorithms, Programming)</h1>
<p><a href="http://www.gap-system.org"><em>GAP</em></a> is a large and powerful programming
language for computations in abstract algebra and discrete mathematics.  It
has been around since the 1980s, and continues to have regular releases
today.</p>
<p>Throughout the <em>Group Explorer</em> app, you will find buttons labeled &ldquo;Compute
this in GAP.&rdquo; Clicking such a button will reveal a box containing <em>GAP</em> code
that does the computation or visualization you&rsquo;re looking at.  This can be
useful for several purposes.</p>
<ol>
<li>If you want to move beyond <em>Group Explorer</em> to something more powerful,
    <em>GAP</em> is an excellent next step.  These small samples of <em>GAP</em> code
    can serve as tiny tutorials, showing you how to do short comptuations
    in <em>GAP.</em></li>
<li>If you aren&rsquo;t sure what <em>Group Explorer</em> is reporting, and want to see
    its results more specifically, the <em>GAP</em> output is sometimes a good
    place to start.  It may contain more technical details than <em>Group
    Explorer</em> reports.</li>
<li>If you want to take the results of a computation that <em>Group Explorer</em>
    has done and manipulate them further, you can do so right on the web,
    by revealing the <em>GAP</em> code, editing it to extend it as needed, and
    then clicking &ldquo;Run&rdquo; to see the results.</li>
<li>If you think there is a mistake in <em>Group Explorer</em> and want to report
    a bug to us, start by checking whether <em>Group Explorer</em> agrees with
    <em>GAP.</em>  If it doesn&rsquo;t, definitely
    <a href="https://github.com/nathancarter/group-explorer/issues">send us a bug report!</a></li>
</ol>
<p>The technology we use to include runnable <em>GAP</em> code in <em>Group Explorer</em> is
the <a href="https://sagecell.sagemath.org"><em>Sage</em> Cell Server</a>.
<a href="http://www.sagemath.org"><em>Sage</em></a> is a large piece of software for
computational mathematics that tries to include as many mathematical tools
as it can, including <em>GAP.</em>  The cell server makes all of Sage (including
<em>GAP</em>) available for live use on the web.</p>
<p>To go further with <em>Sage</em> or <em>GAP</em>, consider these options:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cocalc.com/app">CoCalc</a>,
   a cloud service providing access to <em>Sage</em> (including <em>GAP</em>)</li>
<li><a href="https://www.gap-system.org/Download/install.html">Instructions for installing <em>GAP</em></a>
   on your own machine</li>
<li><a href="https://doc.sagemath.org/html/en/installation/">Instructions for installing <em>Sage</em></a>
   on your own machine</li>
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